It's not easy being Gretna Green

Just got back from a whirlwind tour of the future home. I managed to stave off panic attacks for the most part, mostly thanks to M walking me through. She was pretty giddy about the mountains and the QSU campus is really a gorgeous place. It all reminded me how big the steps are that I'm taking. From Nowhere College to a fairly big State Research University, from the Midwest that has been my home, happily or not, since the age of nine to a 4500-foot-high, bilingual tourist city. It's a lot to take in, and on top of all that, I'm buying a home, so I have to learn what words like "escrow" and "easement" mean. Again, I'm grateful to have a partner studying law.

M's fairly horrific mother is taking over the midsummer wedding with her frijol-smelling Mexican restaurant reception, fake flowers, inviting all of her friends whom we don't know, and insisting that there will be a polka. It's gone from being a classy, intimate, family affair to a well-populated, well-besausaged Wisconsin vulgarfest. So M and I decided to preserve some dignity and psychic clarity by eloping this week. A courthouse, a justice of the peace, smiles and tears, fifty bucks and a single daisy. I feel like the bad sister in an Austen novel, but it's very freeing to be able to do these things on our own terms. So we're still doing the big wedding dress thing in July (and not telling anyone in the family about the ladder-at-the-window-at-midnight escapade), but it'll feel a lot more relaxed and easier to stay sane.